| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: Provins had parted them, and in which their natures were now to expand
and flourish. Accustomed in the old days to rule and to make
inquisitions, to order about and reprove their clerks sharply, Rogron
and his sister had actually suffered for want of victims. Little minds
need to practise despotism to relieve their nerves, just as great
souls thirst for equality in friendship to exercise their hearts.
Narrow natures expand by persecuting as much as others through
beneficence; they prove their power over their fellows by cruel
tyranny as others do by loving kindness; they simply go the way their
temperaments drive them. Add to this the propulsion of self-interest
and you may read the enigma of most social matters.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: "Pelop." xv.; Hicks, 78, 81; and for an alliance between Athens
and Chalcis in Euboea, see Hicks, 79; and for a treaty with Chios,
Hicks, 80.
[16] See "Ages." ii. 22.
Now he had come to the conclusion that without the occupation of Mount
Cithaeron any attack on Thebes would be difficult. Learning then that
the men of Cleitor were just now at war with the men of
Orchomenus,[17] and were maintaing a foreign brigade, he came to an
understanding with the Cleitorians that in the event of his needing
it, this force would be at his service; and as soon as the sacrifices
for crossing the frontier proved favourable, he sent to the commander
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: There is an old proverb, " 'Tis an ill bird that befouls its
own nest"; a curious chapter thereupon, with many modern examples,
might nevertheless be written. This I will leave, and will now
only place on record some of the cruelties perpetrated upon books
by the ignorance or carelessness of binders.
Like men, books have a soul and body. With the soul, or literary portion,
we have nothing to do at present; the body, which is the outer
frame or covering, and without which the inner would be unusable,
is the special work of the binder. He, so to speak, begets it;
he determines its form and adornment, he doctors it in disease
and decay, and, not unseldom, dissects it after death.
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: on the steep slopes. Beyond, the road pitched upward. Dense
chaparral covered the exposed hillsides but in the creases of the
canons huge spruce trees grew, and wild oats and flowers.
Half an hour later, sheltering under the summits themselves, he
came out on a clearing. Here and there, in irregular patches
where the steep and the soil favored, wine grapes were growing.
Daylight could see that it had been a stiff struggle, and that
wild nature showed fresh signs of winning--chaparral that had
invaded the clearings; patches and parts of patches of vineyard,
unpruned, grassgrown, and abandoned; and everywhere old
stake-and-rider fences vainly striving to remain intact. Here,
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